Unlike Labour, we Lib Dems are proud to oppose the extremists
3 min read
It is only two years since the Liberal Democrats last gathered in Bournemouth for a party conference.
But in that short time, we have grown from 15 MPs to 72. Those two years have also seen another two rounds of Lib Dem gains in local government, leaving us with majority control of as many councils as the Conservatives and Reform combined.
It all means that to find a more successful electoral run for the party you have to go back to when Vladimir Lenin was still alive, before the BBC first got its Royal Charter and before Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was born.
But no party should be so complacent or arrogant as to rest on its laurels. The support of the public should never be taken for granted; it is rather something we must strive to earn every day – and the context for doing that has changed dramatically in the last two years.
With the Labour government becoming deeply unpopular so quickly, there are new political and electoral opportunities for the Liberal Democrats.
The political opportunity is to be the party that stands up against populist extremists; that is willing to call out Donald Trump and that is willing to take on Nigel Farage. With the pernicious volume of extremist views – aided by Elon Musk’s love affair with extremism – there’s a crucial role for the Liberal Democrats in being willing and proud to stand in defiance. While both Reform and the Conservatives spend so much time trying to excuse or benefit from extremism, and Labour prevaricates, we simply oppose it.
Rather than putting our energies into telling people how many fellow Brits we dislike, while relentlessly seeking to stoke anger and division, our focus is on improving people’s lives through bettering our NHS, fixing social care, taming the excesses of water companies and tackling the cost of living crisis.
Central to growing our economy – to fund the better public services we need – is improving our trade relations with the European Union. Those promises made by Brexit campaigners have turned to dust. They broke their promises – and our economy.
Meanwhile, the new electoral opportunities for the Liberal Democrats are illustrated by a pair of recent council by-election wins just before conference season kicked off. Andy Burton’s gain from the Conservatives in a Surrey county council by-election played its part in seeing the Conservatives lose their majority in Surrey. It also showed our continued progress in former Conservative heartland areas.
That was followed by a contest held in Keir Starmer’s Camden backyard in north London. That election saw a 19 per cent swing from Labour to the Liberal Democrats in West Hampstead ward, with Janet Grauberg taking the seat with a huge 33 per cent lead over previous winners, Labour.
That is our future: continuing to make progress in replacing the Conservatives across large parts of the country while also starting to make significant inroads into Labour areas.
It is why our Bournemouth conference will be both upbeat and focused on the big challenges of the future. Decency, compassion, valuing our communities and respect for the rule of law: those are at the heart of our approach, and the values we need for Britain to prosper again.
Lord Pack, Liberal Democrat peer and party president
